Platform 1 is for London Underground trains away from London, usually to West Ruislip, and platform 3 for trains towards central London and beyond. The access to the platform via escalators takes you to the front of the train for trains travelling west, and the back for trains travelling east.

The remaining wooden escalators at Greenford, removed in 2014 and replaced with an inclinator

Greenford was the first London Underground station to have an escalator up to platforms above street level.[6] Until 2014 it remained the final London Underground station with a wooden-treaded escalator in service; all other such escalators were previously converted to fully metal treads, or removed altogether from sub-surface Underground stations in the wake of the fatal 1987 King's Cross fire.

The line between Greenford and West Ealing carries infrequent freight services from Paddington New Yard and sand traffic for Park Royal and is occasionally used by passenger services.

In 2009, because of financial constraints, TfL decided to stop work on a project to provide step-free access at Greenford and five other stations, on the grounds that these were relatively quiet stations and some were already one or two stops away from an existing step-free station.[7] £3.9 million was spent on Greenford before the project was halted.[8] The step-free access project, consisting of an innovative glass incline lift, was later restarted, and the incline lift opened on 20 October 2015.[9]

One of the few remaining semaphore signalling installations in London is on the adjacent New North Main Line which Greenford East signal box controls along with the Greenford branch as far as South Greenford. Great Western type lower quadrant signals are still in use.

British Rail plans from the early 1990s to do away with Greenford East signal box and its semaphore signals, with upgraded signalling controlled by Slough and Marylebone signalling centres, were postponed indefinitely as the decline of rail traffic controlled by Greenford East did not justify the cost.

Greenford branch trains (National Rail) ran to Paddington every 30 minutes Mon-Sat; there is no Sunday service. From January 2017, these services were truncated to a shuttle service between Greenford and West Ealing.